Kelowna-developed App Brings Static Images to Life

Kelowna-developed app brings static images to lifeMaxogram links static images to video for a whole new take on marketing and information

The Kelowna makers of a new app that brings static pictures to life with information and internet links, wants to put you in the picture.

Maxogram can be downloaded for free from Apple’s App Store and Google Play and used to scan specific images that are linked to video and other information, direct messaging and social media sites.

CEO and founder Matthew Jensen said Tuesday the app can be used for a number of different marketing and informational purposes, including “how-to” instructions on packaging.

“What Maxogram does is give you an easy way to get information on demand,” said Jensen during a demonstration of the technology at Kelowna’s Summerhill Pyramid Winery.

He said he has been working with the winery and a number of other local and B.C. businesses to get the app ready for public launch.

Jensen said any static image can be used for Maxogram as it can be linked to video and other sources that play when a smart phone or tablet is focused on the image.

During the demonstration, using a picture from a book Summerhill proprietor Stephen Cipes is set to release this month, Jensen pointed his phone’s camera on a black and white photograph of Cipes and famed B.C. environmentalist David Suzuki. Within seconds the picture came to life as a colour video of the discussion taking place when the photograph was taken.

Jensen said he came up with the idea for the app after seeing a woman in a hardware store asking a clerk how to stall a product she just bought.

He said he thought to himself, wouldn’t it be easier if there was a way to just point your phone at an image on a box and the installation instructions immediately appeared.

In addition to the winery, Jensen said several local tattoo parlours have used the technology provided to link to portfolios of their work when their business cards are focused on. And he is also working with grocery store chain Save-On-Foods to, among other things, bring recipes that the store publishes online every week to life when flyers for ingredients used in the recipes are focused on.

At first the technology appears similar to those black and while patterned VR codes the public is already familiar with. But Jensen said Maxogram can do much more. In addition to linked video, it can also provide on-the screen links many social media portals and other information sites.

Linking video to a static image is easy and quick once an account has been set up and the image has been imported into the system, he said. Set up can be done by the clients themselves.

Jensen added the technology also allows for updates, meaning a video one sees one day when focused on an image such as a business card does not have to be the same video seen the next day.

“We see a lot of possibilities for this,” said Jensen, whose company plans to go international with Maxogram early in the new year.